Playing as two combined teams with a blend of players from the Power and Magpies outfits, it was an important and fair-spirited occasion for the club as it prepares for its first AFL and SANFL trial games in February and March.
That first encounter, at least for the Power, starts in just over a week with the commencement of the NAB Challenge against the Crows at Richmond Oval on Sunday 16 February.
In temperatures hovering around the 40-degree mark all afternoon, a heat range that would please the Power’s high performance unit, the stronger Port Adelaide outfit - playing in a black guernsey - proved clinical and efficient with its ball use for most of the afternoon.
Against a white-jumpered side with a mix of talent from the club’s AFL and SANFL lists, they proved far and unsurprisingly superior.
Ruckman Matthew Lobbe was particularly impressive dominating the hitouts and kicking three goals.
He supported key forwards Jay Schulz and John Butcher who booted six and four goals respectively.
The sides, headed up by AFL senior coach Ken Hinkley and SANFL senior coach Garry Hocking, switched players and rested others after half time, allowing the two coaches to try players in different positions throughout the day.
Robbie Gray and Andrew Moore had solid first halves while Brad Ebert and Cameron O’Shea found the ball all day.
Tom Jonas, Tom Clurey and Jack Hombsch were rocks in defence for the ‘Black’ side too, with excellent rebound on show for the club’s faithful supporters.
Of particularly encouragement to supporters would be the positive kicking efficiency of the two sides - with 27 goals kicked for the afternoon between the two sides and an overall scoring efficiency over 85%.
The day had added significance with the club clearing the 40,000-member mark and setting itself up for a month-long charge towards the 50,000-member number it ambitiously set itself at the start of its latest campaign.
Senior coach Ken Hinkley was pleased with the ability of the team to perform in the hot conditions, particularly younger players and new recruits who played their first structured game for the year.
"We knew it was going to be hot all week and we've had a January where we've trained in the heat so it was a bonus to come up today and find 42 degrees for the players to have a first crack at it," said Hinkley after the match.
"Importantly for us is the structured stuff we were able to do and the young blokes we picked up were able to come and fit straight in and get educated well and not look out of place today.
"We look forward to the opportunity to play the Crows next week, both us and [Crows coach Brenton] Sanderson will be in the really early stages of getting ready for Round 1 and no doubt he'll be looking for similar things from his boys and we'll look for from ours."
Port Adelaide will play the Crows at Richmond Oval at 4:10pm on Sunday 16 February.
